Conventionally, optical communication systems and methods have been deployed using intensity modulated direct detection (IMDD) with a large number of commercial deployments for 10 Gbps. The advantage of IMDD systems are simplicity of transceivers and fast signal acquisition. On the other hand, IMDD systems do not take into account the wave nature of an optical signal. Direct detection is an optical power measuring or photon counting process. Sensitivity of the direct detection process is limited by receiver electronic noise and is de-gradated with respect to the fundamental quantum limit by 10 to 20 dB, hence, scalability of IMDD. The drive for higher performance and high data rate in optical communication systems and methods has renewed interest in coherent detection. Unlike the direct detection, coherent transmission technology uses all the wave aspects of light: amplitude, frequency, and phase of an incoming optical signal. The benefits of coherent detection do not come without a price. Given the amount of signal processing and the complexity of digital processing in an optical coherent system, the time required to recover a signal is much longer than the industry wide benchmark of 50 msec and much longer than IMDD systems. Accordingly, coherent optical systems and methods require extended signal acquisition time for fault scenarios and signal reacquisition.